M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass to top MLK box office with $47 million
M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass isn’t quite running over, but it’ll be enough to top the box office over the long Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
The director’s superhero-themed sequel to Split and Unbreakable is on track to debut with an estimated $47.1 million in ticket sales at 3,841 theaters in the U.S. and Canada from Friday through Monday, making it the No. 1 film in North America by a wide margin. It also marks the third-best four-day MLK opening on the books, not adjusting for inflation, behind 2015’s American Sniper ($107.2 million) and 2014’s Ride Along ($48.6 million). That said, Glass is coming in a bit below expectations, as industry projections had it arriving with at least $55 million over four days.
From Friday through Sunday, Glass will take in about $40.6 million. By comparison, Split bowed with $40 million in 2017 (on its way to becoming a surprise hit), while Unbreakable opened with $30.3 million — about $49.7 million in today’s dollars — in 2000.
Shyamalan self-financed Glass, which reportedly cost about $20 million to make. It’s being distributed domestically by Universal Pictures, the studio behind Split, and internationally by Disney, the studio behind Unbreakable. Overseas, Glass will add about $48.5 million over the three-day period.
Featuring actors and characters from Split and Unbreakable, Glass stars Bruce Willis as a security guard with superhuman strength and a sixth sense about bad guys, who tangles with a murderous genius with brittle bones (Samuel L. Jackson) and an ex-zoo employee with multiple personalities (James McAvoy), one of whom is a feral killer known as the Beast. Critics’ reviews have been lukewarm, while audiences gave Glass a mediocre B CinemaScore.
In second place this weekend, the Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston dramedy The Upside is holding strong with an estimated $15.7 million from Friday through Sunday ($19.5 million through Monday), which represents a decline of just 23 percent from last week’s debut.
Warner Bros’. Aquaman will take third place with about $10.3 million through Sunday ($12.8 million through Monday), breaking the $300 million mark at the domestic box office (it already hit $1 billion worldwide).
Also making a strong showing this weekend is Funimation’s anime import Dragon Ball Super: Broly, in fourth place with an estimated $8.7 million through Sunday ($9.7 million through Monday) at 1,250 theaters.
Overall box office is down 13.3 percent year-to-date, according to Comscore. Check out the Jan. 18-20 numbers below.
1. Glass — $40.6 million
2. The Upside — $15.7 million
3. Aquaman — $10.3 million
4. Dragon Ball Super: Broly — $8.7 million
5. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — $7.3 million
6. A Dog’s Way Home — $7.1 million
7. Escape Room — $5.3 million
8. Mary Poppins Returns — $5.2 million
9. Bumblebee — $4.7 million
10. On the Basis of Sex — $4 million